Wilhelm Rettinghaus
Wilhelm Rettinghaus , also Rittinghaus (* 1644 in Broich, today Mülheim an der Ruhr ; † February 18, 1708 in Germantown , Province of Pennsylvania ), was an early German immigrant to America , Mennonite preacher and the first paper manufacturer in North America.
Live and act
Wilhelm Rettinghaus was born in 1644 as the son of Claus Heinrich Georg Rettinghaus and his wife Maria, née Hagerhoff, in the Broich estate .
William graduated from 1656 to 1660 at the paper mill to Broich of Adolf Vorster an apprenticeship as a paper maker. At that time the Pietist Theodor Undereyck was pastor of the Reformed congregation in Mülheim and Wilhelm quickly found access to its convents . Count Wilhelm Wirich von Daun-Falkenstein, as sovereign and convinced Lutheran, hindered the expansion of other religious communities.
Wilhelm finally went to the tolerant United Netherlands at the beginning of 1663 with his older brother Heinrich Nicolaus . There they found employment in a paper mill in Eerbeek near Arnhem , where they acquired knowledge of Dutch paper production. Here Wilhelm also met his future wife Geertruid Kersten Pieters, whom he married in June 1665 in Loenen .
From 1672 Wilhelm worked in a large mill in Rozendaal , later he represented the interests of this mill in Amsterdam . There Wilhelm maintained contact with the Mennonite community, where he finally met agents of the Quaker William Penn . The Quaker agents promoted emigration to the newly formed North American colony of Pennsylvania . As a citizen of Amsterdam, Wilhelm Rettinghaus now called himself Willm Rittenhuysen . He was persuaded to emigrate and set off for British North America in 1687 with his wife and children . Via New York and overland they reached Germantown ( Deitscheschteddel ) in 1688 , where they settled. From then on he called himself William Rittenhouse , bought land on Monoshone Creek and founded the town of Rittenhousetown , where he and his partners Robert Turner, Thomas Tresse and William Bradford built the first paper mill in North America in 1690. With the oath on the English king, he took British citizenship in 1691.
His partner William Bradford left the company in 1693 and relocated to New York to open a printer there - Rittenhouse supplied the paper. Due to the monopoly, business went very well and Rittenhouse paid off the remaining shareholders in 1705 and took on his son Nicholas as a partner. When a flood seriously damaged the paper mill in 1701, unexpected financial help came from William Penn, who held the post of governor of the Colony of Pennsylvania. In 1702, the newly built mill was able to start operating again. In addition to the printing plant in New York, printing plants in Philadelphia and Germantown were also supplied with paper.
Marriage and offspring
Wilhelm Rettinghaus married Geertruid Kersten Pieters in Loenen in June 1665 (* June 1642 in Loenen; † 1708 in Germantown ). Your children were:
- Klaus | Nicholas (born June 15, 1666 in Arnhem, † May 4, 1734 in Germantown), grandfather of the astronomer David Rittenhouse
- Elisabeth (* 1670 in Arnheim, † 1720 in Germantown)
- Gerhard | Gerrit | Gerard (* 1674 in Mülheim ?; † February 19, 1742 in Germantown)
literature
- Walter Leiter: Home and name of Wilhelm Rettinghaus, the first paper maker in the USA since 1690. In: IPH Yearbook. 3, 1982, ZDB -ID 138783-2 , pp. 215-232.
- Walter Leiter: Broicher built America's first paper mill in 1690. In: Mülheim an der Ruhr. Yearbook. 1983, ZDB -ID 400096-1 , pp. 239-241.
- Jens Roepstorff: Germantown - Mülheim emigrants in America. In: Mülheim an der Ruhr. Yearbook. Vol. 60, 2005, pp. 215-222.
Web links
- Short biography of Wilhelm Rettinghaus on the Internet portal of the city of Mülheim
- William Rittenhouse, papermaker, and his descendants. Rittenhouse, Family Newsletter, No 1, 1989 (PDF; 8 MB)
- Video on YouTube about William Rittenhouse
- Erich Kuss: Rittinghaus. European roots of the first American papermaker. Munich, 2012.
Individual evidence
- ↑ In the entry on Rettinghaus in the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia it says: "In June 1678 he became a citizen of Amsterdam ..."
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rettinghaus, Wilhelm |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rittinghaus, Wilhelm; Rittenhouse, William (English) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German immigrant to America, Mennonite preacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1644 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Broich, today Mülheim an der Ruhr |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 18, 1708 |
| Place of death | Germantown , Pennsylvania |